


A Chance Meeting

by Liza_Taylor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Aid, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liza_Taylor/pseuds/Liza_Taylor
Summary: Bernadetta's bookshop has fallen on hard times. With bills piling up, she struggles to make ends meet, until she helps a mysterious stranger outside her shop...Slight ship tease between Sylvain/Bernadetta(or friendship, it can go either way)Modern AU, Bernadetta owns a bookshop.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier & Bernadetta von Varley, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	A Chance Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick one-shot for an idea that was mulling around my head. I probably won't write more to it but I really did want to churn it out(also to give us SylBern people some more content, lol).

Bernadetta sighed as she locked the front door of her little bookstore. Another day with barely any customers. The bills were piling up and there wasn’t enough money coming in. All of the possible avenues have been explored, there was no way she could pull in enough money to keep the place afloat.

She buttoned her coat as the cold winter wind began taking hold. It had been a dream to open a small second-hand bookstore but keeping it alive was incredibly difficult, especially with the chain bookstore opening down the street. What in the world was she going to do?

She passed the alleyway between her store and the florist next to it. Usually she avoided looking into it, the streetlamps barely lit up the darkness. Maybe it was movement or perhaps something else that she caught sight of a figure sitting against the wall, right outside the pool of light.

Weird. Usually people didn’t sit there, this was a relatively safe neighborhood. However now that she was focused on the spot, she could hear the breathing of the person was raspy and unnaturally quick.

“Uh, hello, are you okay?” She approached slowly, holding her purse at the ready to swing it if need be. Her mother had made sure Bernadetta had gotten self-defense classes growing up.

Now closer, she saw it was a young man, dressed in a fine suit. His brow was pinched together and he clutched his side, dark liquid seeming to seep out of him.

Her eyes widen as it clicked to what she was seeing. “Hang on! I’ll call for help.” She reached into her purse and rummaged around for her phone. Where was it? She really should have cleaned out her purse, there was so much stuff in here!

“No!" He weakly reached out to her as if trying to bat her purse away.

She squealed and jumped back, not expecting the sudden movement, her phone clutched to her chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Don’t call a hospital.”

Don’t call? Countless theories ran through her head of what the possible reasoning behind that was. The thought that rose above the others was that this man was definitely bad news.

She looked down to alley and tried to remember if it opened up on the other side.

“I wasn’t followed, or at least I hope so.” He let out a few curses and clutched his side.

This was going to be so incredibly stupid and she knew It but there was no way she was going to be able to go home and ignore the fact that this had ever happened.

She kneeled next to him. “Here, lean on me. I own the bookshop.”

Surprise crossed his face but he didn’t argue. He put an arm around her shoulder and Bernadetta almost fell over as she struggled to help him stand.

“Sorry, I’ll try to bear my weight a little more,” he said through gritted teeth.

They stumbled to the door and he leaned against the wall as she pulled out her keys to unlock the front door. What in the world was she doing? She wasn’t the protagonist in a book. So many bad things could happen to her!

Finally getting the door open, she helped him inside and to the back area where the small break room and bathroom was.

After helping him sit on the couch, she hurried to the bathroom and took the first aid kit from under the sink. Would anything in here be enough to help him?

“Come on Bernie, you read on how to give first aid in a situation like this.” Doing it in practice though was probably something else. It took a couple minutes to locate some cloth to clean the blood and she tried to not think about how dirty they probably was. This was a far cry from a sterile environment.

Returning to the break room, she saw he had not moved from where she had left him. Now in the light, she could tell if he didn’t have the pained expression, he would definitely be considered handsome, the red hair cut in a way to make it seem playful, yet professional at the same time.

This handsome guy was bleeding on her couch.

“I found some painkillers,” she stammered, pulling the bottle out of the first aid kid.

Before she could read the instructions, he grabbed it from her, set it in between his legs for leverage, popped off the cap and dry swallowed two pills. “Yay for modern medicine,” he grumbled.

She let out a weak, nervous giggle. “Uh, I also brought the first aid kit. It isn’t much but…”

“It’ll do.” He hissed through his clenched teeth as he tried to shrug off his suit jacket.

Bernadetta sent a silent prayer to every god from every book she had ever read. “Here, let me help.”

It was sad that she came to the realization that the first time she ever undressed a man was to help administer first aid. She also tried not to stare too much as she helped him unbutton and taken off his shirt. Well, any impure thoughts fled as soon as she saw the injury. A serrated cut, maybe with a knife.

As she helped him clean the cut, she realized it would probably need a few stitches to stop it from bleeding.

He seemed to have the same thought as he shook his head. “Of course. Can’t stick a bandage on it and call it a day can I?”

She looked in the first aid kit and sadly there was nothing in there she could use. “I do have a sewing kit in my purse but…”

“You can sew?”

“Well, I do embroidery,” she stammered.

Shrugging, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and tossed something at her. She fumbled but was able to hold onto it. Much to her surprise, she saw it was a kit with a curved needle and thick black thread. Hang on, wasn’t this what they used on people?

“My boss always said it was good to keep this stuff on us at all times. Never know when you need to be stitched up.”

So this guy had a boss…

Well, thinking too much about it wouldn’t help her. The thread was slippery, not what she was used to at all and the curved needle would take some getting used to but it seemed manageable enough.

She stared at his injury with wide eyes. He expected her to sew him up!? He trusted her to sew him up!?

“Listen, anything you do probably won’t be worse that what is happening already.”

He said that but Bernadetta could already think of ten things that could go wrong, the biggest one being she was not a surgeon.

“Hey.” He reached over and looked like he was going to headpat her, then saw the mess of blood on his hand and thought against it. “You’ll do fine. Honestly, you’ll probably do way better than me if I attempted it.”

Well, it wasn’t much of a pep talk but she had a feeling that was the best he could do. He did seem a bit paler than before.

“Come on Bernie, you can do it,” she said to herself as she knotted the end of the thread and began sewing.

Despite the weirdness of sewing on skin, she used the same techniques she did for her embroidery. Short, even stitches that got the job done. She also tried not to think about having to touch him and be almost in his lap to see what she was doing. Her mysterious visitor was silent for the most part besides a small hiss of pain here and there. Bernadetta quickly said she was sorry but he would shake his head and tell her to keep going.

Once she reached the end and looped the thread to tie it off, she gave it a few weak tugs to make sure it was secure before cutting off the excess.

He whistled and looked down at it. “Seriously, I think you’re even neater than the doctors.”

“It’s probably not that neat,” she stammered.

“Trust me, it is.” He looked at his shirt and his jacket. “Man, these were my favorites too…” He shook his head and looked at her. “You mind if I borrow your phone? Mine broke in…the scuffle.”

“Oh, sure.” She was about to hand over her cell phone when she realized that this guy was still a stranger in her bookstore, so she went to the other room to grab the bookstore’s phone and gave it to him.

His eyes twinkled as if he knew what she was thinking before dialing in a number. “If you don’t mind, I would like some privacy? For your own safety. Oh and what’s the address of this bookshop?”

“Huh? Okay.” After giving him the address, she walked into the front area of her bookstore. A part of her wanted to eavesdrop but she ignored the urge. That’s how one got in trouble.

She dusted some of the books as she waited for him to finish and wondered what she should do next.

Hearing noise behind her, she turned to see him leaning against the wall, the phone in hand. “Thanks,” he said, holding it out to her.

“You should be sitting, I don’t think those stitches are tight enough!” She took the phone and looked at her stitch work worriedly. She also noted that he had a few other scars dotting his chest. This was obviously not the first time he had gotten injured.

He chuckled. “Trust me, I think I could run a marathon and these stitches won’t come out. You did good Bernie.”

Her eyes widen. “How do you know my name?” she squeaked. 

He blinked. “Well you said it when you were sewing me up.”

Oh right, she forgot about her stupid habit of talking about herself in third person.

“Anyway, you mind if I crash here for a bit? My boys won’t be in the clear until probably the morning.”

His boys? Bernadetta’s eyes widen as she really was starting to worry about what she got wrapped up in.

“If that’s not okay, you can say so.”

“No, it’s fine,” she stammered. “Uh, I think I have some snacks in there?”

“Great. That works for me.” He paused and looked at her. “What are you going to do? If you leave your keys, I’ll close up when I leave.”

That was the question wasn’t it? There was only one couch and he obviously needed it. But at the same time it felt weird to just leave him in her shop without her there. Although there really was nothing of value in here. Unless old books counted.

“You can just leave in the morning,” she said finally. “No one robs stores in the area and I’m always here bright and early so…”

“Sounds good.” He yawned. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on.”

***

The next morning, when Bernadetta returned to the book store, the man was gone. There was no trace of him being in the break room, all of the bloodied clothes cleaned up, the first-aid kit put away. She might have chalked it up to a dream except for the fact her front door was unlocked and there was a note for her on the counter.

_“A Gautier always pays his debts.”_

Ominous words which Bernadetta didn’t understand the meaning of until a few days later. She received a letter in the mail from her landlord. Dread filled her as she opened it, he was a nice man that let her keep the place for as long as she could but even he was reaching his limit with her.

The title for the land stared back at her.

Confused, she looked at the letter attached. Apparently someone had bought the property from him and gifted it to her.

That was also the day customers started pouring into her store.

She didn’t know why they came but people of all ages came to browse her bookstore and many left with books of their own. And it wasn’t just people coming in to buy but many came with books to sell and a few even asked her to specially order books for them. Business was booming and it was like her struggle to make ends meet was a fever dream.

Two months after the sudden increase, there was a small lull in customers, and Bernie sat on her stool behind the counter to take a breather and eat her sandwich. As she was chewing, the bell above her door jingled.

Dang it, maybe she should have put the sign to “be back soon”. She at least wanted to eat a meal in peace! She looked up, ready to give her usual welcome speech but her eyes widen as she saw who it was.

A handsome man, red hair styled playful yet not in a well fitted suit. “It’s been a while Bernie, how’s the shop been?”

“You’re okay!?” she blurted out. She winced and clamped her hands over her mouth.

He laughed. “Yes I am thanks to someone’s amazing sewing skills.” He walked up to the counter. “No problems with the shop right? Any repairs that need to be done?”

“No, everything is fine…” She blinked as it suddenly hit her. “Wait, you bought the property and then gave it to me?”

He winked. “Like I said in the note, a Gautier always pays his debts.”

“But…I didn’t…”

“You helped me Bernie, not many would stick their neck out like that. Think of it as a gift from me to you.” 

“Sure…” She gestured to the shop. “Did you help with the customers coming in too?”

He smiled at her coyly. “I have my ways. Anyway, why don’t you help me pick out a few books for myself? Although, it seems like you were eating lunch? I can wait until you’re done.”

“No, it’s fine.” She hopped off the stool.

“Seriously, you should eat Bernie, take care of yourself. Although that sandwich doesn’t look that filling, there’s a place down the street with some good burritos.”

The concern on his face was so out of place to the man she had known from that night that Bernadetta couldn’t help but giggle.

“What? Those burritos are good!” he protested.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just funny since we’ve really just met once before and you’re so worried about me.”

“Well you did save my life, just returning the favor, that’s all. Oh! Let’s get take out here, so it won’t be weird.” He took out his phone and pulled up the menu. “What do you want to order? Oh wait, I didn’t ask if it was okay.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Is it okay?”

“Uh, sure?” She really did owe him a lot for helping her out with the bookstore. “Uh, what’s your name by the way?”

“My name? Oh right, I never told you did I?” He held out a hand. “Sylvain Gautier.”

“Bernadetta Varley.” She shook his firm hand.

“Bernadetta huh? Do you prefer that or Bernie?”

“Bernie is fine. I like being called that more.”

“Okay! Bernie it is! Anyway, here’s the menu, pick what you want to eat, I’ll pay.”

“Are you sure?” she asked in surprise.

“Positive.”

She took the phone and looked it over and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Sylvain. Perhaps this could be the start of a friendship or something more? Or maybe it would be best to just stay away from someone like him?

“Did you decide what you want Bernie?”

“I’ll get a chicken burrito.”

“Chicken burrito it is then!”

She had to smile with how excited he seem to put the order in. Maybe she wasn’t a girl in one of her books but maybe she could have an adventure after all.


End file.
